Every once in a while, the awesome folks at Conscious Box send me a media box to check out full of vegan goodies, and they sent me one in December that I'm just now making my way through! There was nothing wrong with the box, it's just been a super crazy time: I didn't even open it until last week. D'oh!

The box was full of awesome goodies like a PeopleTowel and some fun vegan bath products that I can't wait to try out, but the thing I sampled right away was a vegan protein bar that came in a shiny silver wrapper.

I'd never heard of Dale's Raw Protein Bars before, and I'm so glad that I did! I've been avoiding my previous go-to vegan energy bars - Larabars - because their parent company (General Mills) funneled big money to stop the California GMO Right to Know Act. This Dale's bar kind of reminded me of a Larabar, but I think I actually liked it better! I tried the raspberry hazelnut variety, and it had crunchy chunks of hazelnut throughout the bar.

The bar itself was soft and a little bit chewy, like other date-based energy bars, but it didn't taste as strongly of dates as some of the others that I've tried. These seem like a great snack to keep in your purse for those mornings that you're too busy to eat breakfast!

What's in It

Like Larabars, these Dale's bar is date-based, which means it's naturally sweet. You don't need to add any refined sugars when you're using dates - they're nature's candy!  The bar gets its protein from peas (just pea protein - it didn't taste like peas!), rice, hemp, and almond butter, and one of the things I liked most about this bar is that aside from the pea and rice protein, all of the ingredients are things you could pick up at the grocery store. Here's the ingredients list for the raspberry hazelnut bar:

dates, pea protein, hemp protein, rice protein, almond butter, hazelnuts, coconut nectar, dried raspberries, raw cacao, coconut oil, water

How It's Made

Not too shabby, right? On the Dale's Raw Foods site, they have a video showing how the bars are made, which I thought you guys might like to see, too:

Don't you love how hands-on the production is? They even make the raw almond butter from scratch!

I've never seen Dale's in any stores (Have you? Tell us where in the comments!), but you can pick them up by the case on the Dale's Raw Foods website. At $36.99 for a case of 12, that works out to just over $3 for a bar, which I think stacks up pretty well to other energy bars I've seen, especially since Dale's is a small company.